Egypt protesters fear revenge if Mubarak stays

[Poll_Blind]

From MSNBC:

VP is 'threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed,' protest spokesman claims

CAIRO — Egypt's protesters and opposition groups were infuriated Wednesday by a warning from Vice President Omar Suleiman that if their movement doesn't enter negotiations, a "coup" could take place causing greater chaos.

Suleiman's warning — made as a mass demonstration in a central Cairo square entered its 16th day — cast a shadow over his efforts to put together negotiations with the opposition over democratic reforms.

The protesters fear the regime will manipulate the talks and conduct only superficial reforms, so they insist they will enter substantive negotiations only after President Hosni Mubarak steps down.

--snip--

Much more at the link!

So, yeah, if Mubarak (and Suleiman) stays I have no doubt whatsoever that the secret police are going to be swimming through neighborhoods and scenes like this one are going to be a recurring nightmare all throughout Egypt. People like this wonderful elderly woman are going to wind up tied to chairs and beaten senseless with rubber hoses. You can try to push it out of your mind, or just reject the idea entirely on some premise or other but deep down you know this is how dictatorships roll.

History will report that it was vital for the Egyptian people to win freedom from an aging, out of touch despot.

And I'm afriad the safe money is bettering that that aging, out of touch despot will able to stay in power for a few years longer, that the protesters were disappeared under tank treads or in security police vans and were never to be seen or heard from again, outside of, say, wedding rings found in the stomachs of Nile crocodiles.

A few other things are also worth noting and the history books might not cover these facts so much: That the despot was propped up financially with huge donations from the American government, that they were his greatest if not sole financial supporter, that Americans funded his regime and gave him the most cutting-edge military hardware to tyrannically subjugate his people.

And that at the time of this crisis America was headed by a Democratic president, a Nobel Peace Prize winner even, who talked and talked but did nothing and whose interrogators used the same rubber hoses to beat their subjects of extraordinary rendition in Egyptian jails as the Egyptian secret police will be using on those protesters.

Over the last 10 years I have learned some disgusting lessons about what American presidents are capable of and how having a D or R in front of their name doesn't matter so much when it comes to keeping the engine of Empire chugging away on the bodies of innocent people. Not you and not me and certainly if our time comes to go into the hopper it won't be today or tomorrow.

But no one is safe and that is why we should work to make sure that everyone is safe.

PB

[Bragi]

1. I suspect the plan is even more insideous

What the regime needs to do is to just keep dragging things out until the protests start to wane and U.S media attention shifts elsewhere (like another Charlie Sheen development.)

Once this happens, the leaders of the pro-democracy movement will start to be victims of attacks by "pro-government supporters".

The regime will claim, of course, that it has nothing to do with these acts of violence, and will condemn them. So will the White House and State.

But the attacks will keep happening until the leaders are neutered, killed, or just leave the country.

I think that's the likely scenario, which is why the pro-democracy movement cannot give up and wait to see what happens. Defeat is not an option for them.